Clean, Affordable, and Resilient Energy Systems (CARES) for Socially Vulnerable and At-Risk Communities
Project Team
CoRE Lab:
- Prof. Thomas Wahl (Co-PI)
- Alejandra Rodriguez Enriquez (Co-PI)
- Javed Ali (GRA - PhD Student)
Project Period: 2023 – 2025
Total Project Funding: $1,000,000
UCF Collaborators:
- Prof. Kristopher O. Davis (PI)
- Prof. Kelly A. Stevens (Co-PI)
- Prof. Zhihua Qu (Co-PI)
- Prof. Christopher Emrich (Co-PI)
- Mengjie Li (Postdoc)
- Sara Belligoni (GRA - PhD Student)
Project Description
This project is developing a geospatial framework to optimize the deployment of solar-plus-storage for the most vulnerable and at-risk communities in Central Florida and the Florida Panhandle. The research team will determine the relationship between extreme weather events and grid outages to quantify vulnerability and risk before selecting the optimal location to site solar and solar-plus-storage. Ultimately, this interdisciplinary geospatial framework can be translated and scaled to other communities around the world with the end goal of helping provide clean, affordable, and resilient energy systems to those who need it most.
Funding Agency
This project is funded by the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Renewables Advancing Community Energy Resilience (RACER) program.